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- <text id=92TT2108>
- <title>
- Sep. 21, 1992: Beefing Up the Bosnian Brigade
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Sep. 21, 1992 Hollywood & Politics
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK
- WORLD, Page 15
- Beefing Up the Bosnian Brigade
- </hdr><body>
- <p>Foreign troop commitments deepen after an unprotected U.N. convoy
- is attacked
- </p>
- <p> The last thing the 1,500 United Nations troops on duty in
- Bosnia-Herzegovina needed was another lesson in what a thankless
- task they face. They got one anyway, when two French soldiers
- were killed and five more injured as their convoy, carrying
- supplies from Belgrade, was raked by machine-gun fire near
- Sarajevo's airport. The U.N. commander in Sarajevo, Egyptian
- Brigadier General Hussein Ali Abdul-Razek, blamed the attack on
- "irresponsible elements" among the Bosnian government troops
- loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic. Abdul-Razek's deputy,
- French Lieut. General Philippe Morillon, called it "a clear
- provocation by people who are enormously upset by the
- possibility of peace and determined to remain at war."
- </p>
- <p> The deaths gave new urgency to plans announced last week
- by U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to increase as
- much as fivefold the strength of the peacekeeping force. The new
- troops, to be supplied by NATO countries other than the United
- States, would be deployed to protect U.N. convoys and help get
- detainees on both sides out of the war zones. For its part,
- Washington praised Croatia for interdicting an Iranian plane
- carrying weapons intended for Bosnian Muslim forces, and also
- urged a ban on military flights, to thwart Serbian bombing runs
- in Bosnia.
- </p>
- <p> The U.N.'s broader tasks become crucial as winter
- approaches with a cold promise of more agony for civilians
- pinned down in Sarajevo, Goradze and other towns in the war-torn
- republic. But movement toward an end to the hostilities remains
- fitful at best. Former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and
- former British Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, co-chairmen of the
- peace conference on Yugoslavia, were encouraged that leaders of
- all three Bosnian factions agreed to meet in Geneva this week.
- With the spirit of compromise long since bludgeoned by
- atrocities on all sides, however, no agreement at the table is
- likely. And the deadly frustrations of the U.N. forces augur
- even worse for implementing anything on the ground.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-